spoiled chinese girl

So I just dug out an old website I used to run, and it’s still available, and one of my favourites was a massive rant I wrote about my first employer, but more notably the customers of the bookstore.  So I present as a Saturday mini-series, why I hated Chapters customers.

the early riser
this is the group of people who expect us to be open at 7am, at 8am, at 8:30am and complain when we opened the doors at 9:03am instead of 9:00am. i am sorry, we work on earth time, not the fucked up time that their watches have been giving them all their lives! they all immediately rush to the newspapers to get their morning paper, then head to starbucks for their morning $5.00 cup of coffee. to which they will read every article, laugh at every comic, cry over every sad piece of news, curse and praise the stock markets, and read the personal ads. then they will also continue to fill in the cross words, circle job oppurtunitites, circle personals of others, write down phone numbers, dates, times of engagements with friends who have called them on their cell phones, make notes of the movies that will be playing where and what times, and procede to steal the part of the paper that they need for future reference. of course spilling coffee on whatever is left of the paper and leaving it in 50 pieces for the chapters magazine (i.e. ME) person or starbucks people to pick up and ME to piece back together. then when there are no more full copies of the newspapers for OTHERS to read and enjoy to it’s fullest with the morning coffee, they’ll complain because “indigo would have more copies of the newspaper”

1. I broke a chair today at work, and thusly feel fat.
   
2. I got a 50 cent raise, that came with a lecture about my shortcomings.
   
3. I just finished watching Mean Girls, and realized the only thing from high school I remember is sex, drugs, and rock & roll, and how I partook in none of those activities.

I had to struggle with that line yesterday.  I finally gave up when my co-worker realized all I could really do was swim, drown, in circles while this guy obviously was getting more and more agitated over the phone.  It was honestly quite funny to me since I wasn’t the most cooperative in giving into someone else’s demands.

I don’t know when, or why, people believe that if they are the customer, that the world must stop when they say stop and the world must go when they say go.  If you are in the printing industry, you’ll know as well as I know that when a job comes into production, it does not mean that the job automatically goes onto the press.  Because… let’s face it, there’s stuff to do that has already been promised to other people.  And when the un-thinkable happens, like a pressman being a dick and seemingly sitting on his thumbs for 8 hours on a Saturday shift (what really happened) or we have a power failure for all day Saturday and part of Sunday (what we told this pissed off customer) it’s not like we’re trying to make him late for his job, but it’s something that might just possibly happen.

What I find even more frustrating is when people think that raising their voice, and yelling and being rude, condescending and otherwise downright insulting is a good way to get good service.   Again, I find it funny, since if you’re being a jerk to me, why should I be extra nice to you?

Anyways, the end result seemed to be a combination of this customer having very obviously unrealistic demands, the fact that I told him they were unrealistic but he decided to ignore my warning, coupled with the fact that we have employees who don’t feel like getting paid to work means you actually have to work, and my general dislike for customers, created this mess.

BUT it is extremely funny to hear someone go “I gave you this on Wednesday, why didn’t you run it on Thursday?” and having me say “Well… it’s hard to politely say this, but I do have other customers…” and when he says “Well I have priorities, and obviously you do not have me as a priority” the only thing I come back with “I understand that, unfortunately I have many customers who also have priorities, and I can’t cancel their job that they ordered 3 days before yours, just to run yours, because you tell me to”

And while I really and truly am trying to make the best of the situation, you can’t expect an entire company to shut down everything it is doing, and start up what you want, when you want it, just because you graced us with your presence.

The real problem? Someone (him, or his customer) sat on this project much too long, and the end result is they needed someone to turn this job around way too quickly.  And being that the attitude at my company is “Don’t ever EVER *EVER* turn away work!!!” we took it on, unrealistic demands and all.  Because… no other printing company would be available to turn this around near this quickly.  So they’re going to have to learn the lesson of doing their stuff much earlier, and then they can take advantage of other printing companies that will take much longer in giving them their stuff.

And to that? I say good riddance.

This Saturday the Shiatsu School of Canada is hosting a bunch of workshops & having their students do a bunch of treatments. And I've signed myself up for the following:

-Self Shiatsu Workshop
-Mini Shiatsu Treatment
-Pulse & Tongue Treatment
-Fire & Needle Acupuncture Demo

I'm all sorts of excited, and at the same time thinking I'm crazy for wanting to be up, awake, and somewhere else by 9am on a Saturday!

There's a facebook… thing (at first it was just for bands since you become a “Fan” of them…) called “Toronto Tattoo School” that boasts their students 2 month education is equal to an apprenticeship, and offers tattoos (up to 3 hours per session) for $35.00 per session. And I giggled. Then I considered it. Then I just felt pity and despair for the world at large. I think the saddest part about it all, is they have a crap-tastic logo with absolutely no graphic design sense, and the fact that they can't seem to afford to have their own website and use hotmail and yahoo to handle their e-mail.

I wonder if they'd be insulted if I booked an appointment and showed up with a grapefruit I want tattooed?